Prawn Toasts are a traditional Cantonese dim sum dish from Hong Kong. The Koreans also have their own version of this called Menbosha. It is a deep fried sandwich filled with delicious and fragrant prawn paste, paired with a sweet chilli mayo, which the West also call it Bang Bang sauce.

There are 3 main components to this dish: the bread, prawn paste and sauce.

The bread: has to be white sandwich bread, crusts off. You can definitely dry out the crusts and make them into breadcrumbs for breading (no waste!). But back to the bread, the thicker the slices the better; i.e. Japanese sandwich slices would be best but no need to go fancy if you don’t have access to it.

Prawn paste: fresh prawns are good but don’t be afraid to use frozen. Just as good. Highly HIGHLY recommend you using a food processor for this step because nobody got time to smash so many prawns with their knife.

Sauce: it’s just mayo and sweet chilli sauce. Kewpie mayo only.

Ingredients

300g raw prawns, shelled and deveined
A handful of scallion/spring onion, chopped
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 egg white
4 garlic cloves
2 tsp sesame oil
4 slices of sandwich bread
Butter
Kewpie mayo
Sweet chilli sauce

Method

In a food processor, combine prawns, scallions, cornstarch, egg white, garlic with salt and pepper, and pulse until it forms a paste.

Cut off the crusts of your bread slices and divide the prawn paste evenly between 2 sandwiches. Clean off the sides, brush the outside with melted butter and bake at 180C / 350F in an airfryer for 15-20 minutes or until the prawn paste is fully cooked. You could also deep fry (just omit the butter) or bake in the oven.

Sauce: 2 parts sweet chilli sauce, 3 parts kewpie mayo.